


Dice Disasters Off Camera

by schneefink



Category: Dice Disasters (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schneefink/pseuds/schneefink
Summary: A collection of short Dice Disasters snippets.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Austrian National Day! I love seeing a protagonist from my hometown (is this how people from London and NYC feel all the time?), and for today I wrote a snippet of Jasmin being very typically Viennese.

It took Jasmin over a month to miss coffee, which was odd. Usually she had coffee almost every morning, and she liked to just sit in her favorite coffee house and read. But the "coffee" in Ness was not only quite expensive, but also slightly off. It tasted a bit like… strawberries, maybe? It was usually served with apple juice, which was very strange. 

Though Jasmin did prefer that to the water. Drinking water was usually collected with spells here, meaning it was very clean, thankfully; but it also tasted very boring.

"You're a water snob?" Zan had asked in disbelief when Jasmin had said so. 

"I don't think so?" Of course not every place could have water as good as Vienna's, but Jasmin didn't expect that much. "This water tastes like nothing, though."

"Water is supposed to taste like nothing," Zan informed her.

"Not like this! This tastes, uh, sterile? Not like tap water."

"Tap water is gross," Max said. Zan and Erica nodded, and Cody shrugged.

"Is this an American thing? Do you just not have good water in America?" Jasmin asked. "What do you drink?" 

"Coffee," Zan said pointedly.

"Bottled water, usually," Max said. "Or soft drinks, or Gatorade…"

"Tea, sometimes," Erica said.

"Apple juice," Cody said firmly. 

Jasmin raised her eyebrows. Americans were strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon: the better the magician, the more the magically created water tastes like spring water.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some speculation about the best big lava puppy.

"So, uh," Max asked, a few days after they left Chattan. They were resting in a glade: Cody was playing with Wotter, Jasmin was dozing in the sun as a goblin, and Erica and Zan were having an argument about which route to choose next. Max, who didn't think it mattered much which path they took, had sat down on the other side of the glade and was leaning against Pickles' side, enjoying the warmth of his hide. 

"HM?" Pickles asked. He turned his entire body to look at Max, which made Max slide off sideways. He looked up at his steed and sat down on the ground properly.

"I was just wondering," he said. "Remember when I called you for the first time–"

"I AM PROUD TO SERVE MY MASTER," Pickles declared.

"I know that, buddy," Max said fondly. He stood up and scratched behind Pickles' ears the way he knew Pickles liked. "You're the best."

"I AM THE BEST," Pickles said proudly and stretched his neck, asking for more scratches. Max obliged.

"So, uh," Max continued eventually. "You said that you serve me because I'm the 'consort to the Prince of Darkness.'" He made air quotes with one hand.

"YES. I AM HONORED TO SERVE THE CONSORT."

Max took a deep breath. He'd tried to avoid thinking about this question, but the more time he spent with Pickles, the harder it became. Besides, it would be better to find out now than at some later inopportune moment. "Okay, but… what does that mean?"

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND," Pickles said, after a short pause.

"I mean, I guess I should know this, and I'm sorry I don't, but… who's this prince of darkness you're talking about?"

Pickles stared at him. Max tried to look confident and to ignore the fear that Pickles would find out that he'd come to the wrong person by mistake and would simply leave. 

"I WILL BRING THE CONSORT TO THE PRINCE," Pickles stated. He stomped twice and a lava-red circle appeared on the ground.

"Wait," Max said, alarmed. He heard his friends shout his name, and then he was falling.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jessica. When was the last time you heard from Cody?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe ~~if~~ when they return to Earth it'll be like no time has passed and they were never gone at all.  
> Or maybe not.
> 
> Contains: grief, angst, speculation about the fate of a missing child, doubting one's sanity

"When was the last time you heard from Cody?"

***  
It was a month later when Jessica looked up from her books and realized that she hadn't thought about Cody for an entire afternoon.

Her first reaction was guilt. Then she called herself stupid. Just because she thought of other things for a couple of hours didn't mean that she was forgetting him, she reminded herself. It did no-one any good for her to think about it constantly. Her therapist had told her that it was healthy to think about other things and to allow herself moments of happiness. Cody would have wanted her to be happy.

He shouldn't have disappeared, then. 

Not that he'd had a choice. Jessica firmly believed that. Cody never would have voluntarily left like that. Even if his favorite clothes and his backpack with all his cards were missing too, and the window open, and the police thought that he'd probably decided to go on a night stroll. Even if that was true – and Jessica couldn't believe that Cody would do something like that – he never would have stayed away for so long. Something must have happened. 

With an effort, Jessica stopped herself from imagining a dozen terrible scenarios again. Maybe he'd simply gotten on a bus somewhere and fell asleep, and then when he got out he hit his head and lost his memories, and one day he'd remember and call them and show up again like nothing had happened. And he'd excitedly tell them about the things he'd seen, as usual, and about the new friends he'd made and the things he'd learned…

Maybe he'd never be able to learn anything new again ever. 

Jessica curled up tightly, her forehead pressed against her knees, and took shuddering breaths.

Eventually, some minutes later, she managed to start the exercises her therapist had taught her. She mentally drew her fingers on the edges of various shapes until her heartbeat slowed down again, and then she opened her eyes and sat up. 

A blue otter sat on the table in front of her.

"What," Jessica said blankly. She rubbed her eyes, but the otter was still there. It was looking at her.

"Jex? Can you hear me?" 

"Cody?" Jessica sprang up and looked around wildly. 

"I was told that I could send you a message, but I'm not sure if this is working," Cody's voice said in her head.

"Cody? Can you hear me?" In her haste to reach for her phone – clearly the voice had to come from somewhere – she fumbled and almost dropped it. It showed no incoming call.

"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I'm fine! I'm in a completely different world! I don't know how I ended up here. But I have magic now! And I made new friends!"

Jessica sat down again. She stared at the blue otter, and it stared back.

So this is what it feels like to have hallucinations, she thought clearly, while in the back of her mind she felt like screaming.

"The Moon Spirits said that we can come back but we have to do something first, and we don't know how long it'll take. Hopefully not too long! And I'm not sure if I'll be able to send another message? I think this is taking a lot of power."

There was a short pause and a muffled sound in the background, like someone talking when an earpiece was covered.

"Anyway, I hope you're okay! I hope I'll see you again soon! I have to go now, bye!" 

The blue otter blinked slowly. Then it disappeared.

For several minutes Jessica just sat there, unable to hold a clear thought. 

It had sounded like Cody. It had sounded so much like Cody, more than his voice in her memories and whenever she'd imagined his voice before. It had sounded so much like Cody that she would have sworn that it was actually him.

Except that it had just been a voice in her head, claiming to be a magic message, and apparently it had been telepathically transmitted via a blue otter.

Jessica seriously wondered if she was losing her mind. 

Maybe she'd made it all up. She must have. She wanted Cody to just be on a magical adventure so badly, to be well and happy and with friends, that she'd made up an entire telepathic voice mail to fool herself. That was the only possible explanation that made sense.

Or it had been magic.

Jessica stood up and started to pace. No. That was foolish. There was no such thing as magic, or different worlds, or moon spirits. It would be foolish to believe her own hallucinations and start to hope. Foolish in the extreme. She had to pull herself together. Her little brother was missing, and she just would have to learn to deal with it somehow. 

Her sight was blurry with tears. She'd always known that she was a fool.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU, with some of my personal headcanon sprinkled in. Starts in episode 4.

"I think I'm… a bard? What. And I have ten hitpoints?" Erica stared at the hologram that had appeared when she'd touched her wristbands together.

"What's hitpoints?" Cody asked.

"Your health. Here, show me yours, it says – it says you have seven hitpoints. And you're a wizard, with first level spells and… is this a joke?" Erica distantly noticed that she was breathing faster. 

"I wish," Zan said darkly. 

"The spell descriptions tell you what dice you need to roll!" 

"Dice?"

"Here, it says d6, that's a six-sided die, and you can cast Light and Ray of Frost and Magic Missile, you're a freaking wizard…"

"Hey, calm down." Max was suddenly there in front of her, reaching out a hand.

"I am calm! I think I just almost died! Was that… you healed me, didn't you? What are you?" 

"I'm a paladin," Max said and touched his wristbands together to show her his hologram. "Zan is a ranger, and Jasmin is a druid."

"Of course you are." Erica realized that she was sitting on the floor again. "I'm in a D&D game." This must be a bad dream. But she'd been hurt, and then healed again, and the floor felt real.

"What's that?" Cody asked.

"Dungeons and Dragons. It's a fantasy roleplaying game. I've never even played a bard before!" She'd been a sorcerer before, and a rogue, and in her latest campaign she'd played a dwarven warblade called Ruby Ironaxe. The party had also had a cleric and a druid and a scout, and they'd uncovered the plot by the local head of the Trading Guild and defeated a giant spider.

"And you think this game has something to do with our magic?" Zan sounded skeptical.

"Is that true?" Cody asked the ceiling.

"Using familiar systems has shown to increase efficiency of the SPEL proprietary wristbands for previous subjects," the mechanical voice said.

"You based the magic system on D&D because humans are massive nerds?" 

"Correct."

"What the fuck," Zan said flatly. 

"This is good, right?" Jasmin asked. "You're familiar with D&D, so you can help us understand it."

"I've only played occasionally, I'm not an expert," Erica protested. "Besides…" She scrolled through her spell list and then Cody's. "I think this is based on 5e. I've only played 3.5."

"I have no idea what you just said," Max said.

"Different editions of the same game. 5e is the newest. It's very popular because it's easy to start with, but I've always played 3.5." Her friend Sarah had introduced her to 3.5. She had a whole bookshelf of rule books, and it always seemed unnecessary to switch to the new version, especially because Sarah complained that 5e didn't offer as many specializations as 3.5 did. Sarah was the kind of player who always played optimized multi-classed characters, and if she hadn't been so good about not hogging the spotlight it would have been so frustrating to be in a party with her. "I only know 5e from a few podcasts and stuff." Though many of them relied extensively on homebrew and weren't to be trusted when it came to the rules, especially spell details, _Clint._

Some of them had homebrew rules when it came to resurrections. Because D&D had resurrections, and Erica might have actually died a few minutes ago. 

With an effort, she pushed the thought away. She couldn't afford to dwell on that right now.

"That's still more than we know," Jasmin pointed out. "You can tell us what to expect."

"I mean, roughly, yeah. You're a druid, right? Can you turn into animals yet?"

"No?" Jasmin said in a high voice. "I can turn into animals?"

"You might have to wait a few levels, I haven't played a druid before." And her group's campaigns had usually started around level five.

"Cool! What can I do?" Cody asked excitedly.

"You're a wizard, so basically anything." Were the wristbands his spellbook? That was convenient. "You can turn into animals later. And you can get a familiar – like a companion animal."

"Cool!" 

"What about me?" Max asked.

"Uh, none of our group ever played a paladin. Or a ranger. They're not that powerful." Charlie had loved to have them encounter paladin NPCs, but that had mostly been for roleplaying reasons. 

"Wow," Zan said.

"Only comparatively! They can still be pretty dangerous. And I think you can get an animal companion too? And I think paladins get mounts?"

"I have an animal companion. Her name's Hat," and Zan reached into a pocket and pulled out a rat. 

"Nice. Yeah, that probably counts," Erica said, trying to sound like she was certain. What were the requirements for choosing and training animal companions again? "I can make a list of what I remember," she offered. Sarah would be able to answer every question and come up with plans on how to optimize their abilities and teamwork, but Erica had always only focused on her own classes.

"Hey, can we get a rulebook for that game?" Max asked the ceiling.

There was a brief sound of static. "Data corrupted," the voice informed them. 

"Oh that's just typical," Zan complained. 

It really was up to her, then. Erica took a deep breath. "Okay." She stood up again and cleared her throat. "So. Rule number one, don't split the party…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erica here is only familiar with 3.5 because that's what I know. You can definitely play a badass paladin or ranger even in 3.5, though they tend to be more specialized and not as flexible as other classes. A warblade, btw, is basically a better fighter with cool martial maneuvers, they're great fun to play.


End file.
